Six nights a week, Karamba is all about gay Latinos. But Fridays are more complicated. Friday nights, the club hosts Hot Pink!, a dance scene for the young and would-be fabulous. In most clubs, the women are the pretty ones, but the men here have picked up on the chicks’…
Jen Sincero was having the best sex of her life. And while that should have been cause for celebration, it wasn’t quite that simple. After all, in the age of Oprah, you can’t simply live. You need explanation. Analysis. Most important, you need written assurance that your life choices fit…
For all but the most breathless pageant addicts, the Miss Arizona competition this past June was low on drama. Miss Arizona 2004, a busty blonde, handed off her crown to the new Miss Arizona 2005, a slightly less busty blonde. People clapped. Surely, someone’s mother cried. To see the fireworks,…
When Barbara Lewkowitz first saw the report, she was too stunned to hit “print.” And when she went back online, hoping to read it again, the link was gone, leaving her to wonder if the whole thing was a figment of her imagination. It wasn’t. After a colleague faxed over…
As a little girl growing up in Ferndale, Washington, miles from the bustle of big-city Seattle, Terra Naeve couldn’t understand why all the other kids went to church and her family didn’t. And so at 8-year-old Terra’s insistence, her family started attending the little Lutheran church in town. And they…
This summer will be my first in Phoenix, a simple statement that seems to come with a built-in drum roll. Say it to anyone in the Valley, and you’ll get a suitably dramatic response: The heat is like sticking your head in an oven. Or living in a blow-dryer. Or,…
Jim Chilton doesn’t just admire cowboy values. He believes in them. And, like any true believer, he’s eager to share the gospel in well-rehearsed sound bites, whenever the situation allows. Ask him, for example, why he decided to sue one of the West’s most prominent environmental groups. “I laid in…
In matters of appearance, the southwestern willow flycatcher is no dodo: Barely half an ounce, with pale yellow and gray feathers, it’s as photogenic as any sparrow. But when it comes to Darwinian fitness, the flycatcher comes up short. Consider its relationship with the brown-headed cowbird. The cowbird, a far…
When it came to her firstborn son, Barbara Marin wasn’t taking any chances. So when her doctor warned her that putting the boy to sleep on his back was the only way to save him from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Marin listened. At the time, in 1997, the message was…
Three years ago, Bill Tonnesen self-published a book announcing his plans to become one of the top modern artists in the world. The undisputed giants of the field were Richard Serra and James Turrell, he wrote. “Then I thought, there would be me.” At the time, Tonnesen wasn’t just little-known…
Trudy Hill named her older daughter after Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch spinster who hid Jews from the Nazis and was sent to a concentration camp for her efforts. Ten Boom’s story, commemorated in a book beloved by Christians everywhere, is about trusting in God, taking on evil, and learning…
For the Phoenix Family Museum, there is no bigger event than the annual “Family Affair” gala. Last February, the gala raised almost a quarter of a million dollars. With a “Chinese New Year” theme for the February 5 festivities — complete with a magical dragon — the fledging museum hopes…
In the beginning, when Laci Peterson was just another missing person and Scott Peterson only a husband under suspicion, Kathy Monkman wanted nothing to do with the case. Didnt want to watch the endless coverage on cable TV; didnt want to chat about it online. Of all the court watchers…
Lisa Clarke was not a dog person. Didn’t have a dog. Didn’t want one. Then she met Klondike. Just two and a half weeks old, he was part of a litter of seven orphaned pups. Clarke’s husband and kids were smitten, and the orphan soon had a home. Now a…
